As computing technology advances and computing devices become more prevalent, computer programming techniques have adapted for the wide variety of computing devices in use. For instance, program code can be generated according to various programming languages to control computing devices ranging in size and capability from relatively constrained devices such as simple embedded systems, mobile handsets, and the like, to large, high-performance computing entities such as data centers or server clusters.
Conventionally, as applications are being developed and/or modified for use with computing devices, a new user interface or website interface might be created without reference to an existing interface. However, it is more common to utilize an existing interface and apply modifications to that interface. Therefore, a mockup or model representation is created and can be used to obtain feedback from others involved in the development process.
When analysts work on enhancements of an existing application, they have to recreate the existing application screens manually in a mockup tool in order to be able to modify the screens as part of their desired specifications. Creation of mockups is time consuming and often results in mockups that are not adequate for some purposes. For example, mockups created manually can take anywhere from ten minutes to thirty minutes or longer to create.
In some cases, a screen shot might be captured in an attempt to create a mockup. However, screen shots are not well suited to the purpose of mockups, which is to convey the intent of the application or interface as well as the interaction of elements contained therein. For instance, if the right hand side of the screen shot is being changed, that portion is deleted and replaced by recreated shapes that might no longer match the full screen shot. This can create a disconnect between the screen shot portion and the hand drawn portion. For example, the screen shot portion might be in color and the recreated portion in black and white, which can be distracting. Further, the quality or granularity of the two portions might not be the same. This can result in more focus being placed on the trivial details (e.g., pixels, color, and so on) and not on the overall concept and intent of the mockup or model representation.
Consequently, it would be desirable to have the ability to quickly create mockups or model representations for existing applications and/or websites. It would also be desirable to create a mockup of an existing user interface that has a consistent amount of granularity. As another example, it would be beneficial to have a mockup created in a digital and easily consumable format to allow the mockup to be easily shared and manipulated.
Conventionally, various solutions have been proposed for creating user interface mockups. However, none of the solutions proposed for creating mockups has addressed all of the above requirements and such a solution would be desirable to significantly improve efficiency of creating user interface mockups.
The above-described deficiencies of today's computing system and mockup creation system techniques are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with conventional systems and corresponding benefits of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein may become further apparent upon review of the following description.